Lake Ann ends summer 2013

First view of Lake Ann today

Today, thirteen Senior Trailblazers headed up the Mt. Baker Highway to hike to Lake Ann. Actually, ten Trailblazers and three guests: Carl, Jonelle's friend who goes home tomorrow, a new hiker Bob who hasn't yet joined the Senior Center, and Karen, a friend of Rita's who is visiting her. So off we went from the parking lot on a beautiful day with lots of sunshine.

Rita and friend Karen (plus boots)

The first time I hiked Lake Ann, I asked why it's considered difficult, since it's just eight miles round trip and somewhere around 2,000 feet elevation gain and loss. I was told it is because it's uphill both ways. Truth is, you descend about a thousand feet into a valley, which you cross before starting up another thousand feet to reach Lake Ann and the back side of Shuksan. And then you head back, with the uphill at the end of the day.

Lots and lots of rocks to cross

It's also pretty rocky, with plenty of difficult-to-maneuver boulders. But today we were making really good time, having crossed the valley and started up the final push to Lake Ann, when suddenly we noticed that five of our number had fallen behind. We waited quite a while before finally sending a delegation down to find out what the problem was. It turned out to be a "wardrobe malfunction," since Karen had not used her hiking boots in a couple of years and on these rocks, they began to disintegrate. The soles came right off from instep to heel. Carl had some duct tape, so he tried to make the boots good enough for her to use, at least for a short distance. That's when we all got back together.

Karen's boots getting doctored

Fortunately, Diane had an entire roll of duct tape in her pack, and she donated it to Al and Carl, who put almost all of it on Karen's boots. This took close to an hour of total time lost on today's hike, but we gamely continued on, until we got to our lunch spot and Lake Ann (see first picture).

Doug in front of the Lower Curtis Glacier on Shuksan

Once you get to Lake Ann, you also get to see the beautiful Upper and Lower Curtis Glaciers on Mt. Shuksan. (Note: I am having a terrible time trying to get pictures into Blogger tonight. Sometimes the magic works, but mostly I'm getting error messages. Therefore, I'm going to be brief from here on.) Once we had lunch, we decided to walk around the lake, which we only did once before, when there was an actual beach around the lake and not lots of snow. It was really lovely. Here (I hope) is another picture.

Lake Ann, Shuksan and Upper and Lower Curtis Glaciers

(Aside: I finally left my browser and went to another one, because nothing was working, and now maybe I can finish this post!) Anyway, here's a picture I got of Mt. Shuksan and the glaciers taken when we walked around the lake. It was a beautiful, sunny day, but we did lose some time because of the boot situation. However, Karen did make it back to the cars with her boots plus duct tape.

Heading back down

It was just about the most perfect hiking weather anybody could have asked for today: a light breeze, sunshine, cool temperatures, and time enough to finish our day. The sun is down now, and Sunday brings the first day of fall, but today we had the perfect ending to a fantastic summer in the Pacific Northwest. I just hope we have a wonderful fall season, too. Sending blessings to everyone!
:-)